Kriti Mehrotra
Although it’s been over 5 decades since the Vietnam War came to an end, its reality continues to affect society due to the documentation by the mainstream media across the globe. This is evident in the way some images from that time are still considered symbols of peace, owing to how they had once fueled anti-war sentiments, such as The Terror of War. Among other aspects, as profiled in Netflix’s ‘The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo,’ this image features a nude 9-year-old girl later identified as Kim Phúc as she is running away from a mistaken napalm bomb strike over her village.
Kim Phúc Was Hiding in a Temple When Her World Turned Upside Down
Born into a loving, supportive household as one of 8 kids on April 6, 1963, in the small village of Trảng Bàng in Tây Ninh, Vietnam, Phan Thị Kim Phúc never knew anything but joy. According to her account, her mother actually carried 10 children, but because of an unfortunate miscarriage and an untimely death at a young age, the family essentially had 8 kids. She didn’t know these details at the time, though, which now makes her realize that not only was she once just a young girl trying to have fun, but her parents also focused on providing their remaining family with the best possible life.
Therefore, on June 8, 1972, when the family hid in the local Cao Dai temple upon hearing reports of an upcoming strike in the area, all Kim was really determined to do was play with her cousins. Neither she nor anybody else could have imagined that the South Vietnamese Air Force would mistakenly drop the napalm bombs on the village instead of the nearby North Vietnamese troops. The then 9-year-old admittedly doesn’t remember the incident’s aftermath, but she can still recall how a soldier had rushed in and ordered everyone to “run” if they didn’t want to be killed.
As per Kim’s account, she was almost right in front of the pack alongside her brothers, only to stop upon noticing that her 3-year-old cousin needed help before hailing a soldier to pick him up. “Because I had slowed down to help my cousin, I was caught in the bomb and (got) burned,” she candidly said in a 2025 interview with Elysian Magazine. “… I saw four bombs landing and heard the noise – boom, boom, boom, boom. Suddenly, fire was everywhere around me, which burned off my clothes. I saw the fire all over my left arm, and I used my right to wipe it up (put it out).”
Kim Phúc Believes Her Survival to be a Miracle
When Kim realized she was badly burned, all she could think of was “I will be ugly. I will not be normal, and people will see me in a different way. I was terrified, horrified, and so scared.” The fact that she saw several reporters and soldiers while she was running to escape, just for none of them to immediately rush over to help, also made her feel afraid and alone in a way she still can’t describe. Thankfully, she soon saw two of her brothers, two of her cousins, and some adults aiding them towards the end of the road, so she took off in that direction while writhing in severe pain.
Kim was so young and in so much pain that she can not recall precisely who clicked her photos, but she does remember then-Associated Press photographer Nick Ut trying to help her later on. According to records, he had poured water on her burns in the hopes of easing her agony, unaware that the traces of napalm on her skin would result in it literally cooking her until she passed out. The then-young girl doesn’t remember much else, but she is glad she had lost consciousness because it ceased her pain as the photographer reportedly rushed her to the nearby Cu Chi hospital.
Based on what Kim has heard from Nick, her family, the doctors, and news reports over the years, she knows she was transferred to a different facility within hours but not treated for three days. In fact, it was her mother and elder brother who had found her barely breathing in the morgue of a children’s hospital, where she had been left untreated and unsupervised due to the chaos. Her family had decided to take her home to make her comfortable, only to suddenly find one of her father’s doctor friends working there, who arranged for her transfer to the Barsky Burn Clinic.
Kim Phúc is a Proud Survivor and Advocate for Children of War
Kim was admittedly in the hospital for over a year, during which she had to undergo 16 skin grafts, which she has since followed up with another skin transplant and 13 laser treatments for pain. Her most recent one was reportedly in 2022, even after which “the scale of the pain from zero to 10 is now in the middle.” Nevertheless, she doesn’t take any medication because she believes her emotional suffering was more than the physical, despite her enduring 65% body burns, and she did not want to make it worse. “My personality is quiet,” she has also asserted. “Like with most of the Vietnamese people, we are very quiet, and we just endure our suffering.”
Kim’s road to recovery was far from easy, but thanks to the support of her loved ones and doctors, she was able to make it through, even after local communist authorities allegedly tried pushing her out. According to her accounts, there was a time she was living with chronic pain and such a feeling of isolation that she had suicidal ideations, that is, until she found hope in the faith of Christianity. She thus converted from Cao Dai to Christianity, just for her family to eventually follow in her footsteps. Then, in 1986, she decided to relocate to Cuba to further her studies as she had always desired. She reportedly pursued a degree in Pharmacy, and it was during this period that she also found love with a fellow Vietnamese student named Bùi Huy Toàn before tying the knot with him in 1992.
By this point, Kim had even reunited with photographer Nick Ut, just for them to end up developing such a close bond based on their shared experience that she still refers to him as Uncle Nick. In fact, the duo shows up for one another at every event to this date, as made evident by him coming to Virginia in September 2025 when she was honored with Randolph College’s Pearl S. Buck Award. She received this accolade for her continued humanitarian efforts, which she had begun pursuing in 1993 after being allowed to settle down in Canada under the request of political asylum. She subsequently established the Kim Phúc Foundation International to support child victims of war, became a UNESCO Ambassador, worked with the UN, and expanded advocacy for anti-war/peace.
Kim Phúc Continues to Thrive as an Activist and Family Woman
Although the Kim Phúc Foundation International was initially launched in 1997, it continues to make significant contributions to the youth, society, and areas affected by war all across the globe. In fact, it helped develop a public library at the Đức Tân Primary School in Vietnam in 2019, arranged for Ukrainian refugees to find a haven following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, and is active in India through a partnership with Emmanuel Orphanage. As if that’s not enough, Kim herself has spread her wings as a symbol of discipline, endurance, hope, and perseverance by evolving into a public activist speaking up on political situations and anti-war movements.
Since then, Kim has been honored with the Order of Ontario in 2004, several Doctorate degrees from various Canadian universities, and the Dresden Peace Prize in 2019. The author of ‘Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, & Peace’ (2017) thus remains active through her global speaking engagements and non-profit foundation, all the while ensuring to spend time with her loving family. After all, from what we can tell, she is still based in Ontario, Canada, alongside her husband Bùi Huy Toàn, with whom she shares two adult sons. Their firstborn, Thomas, is seemingly 29 years old as of writing, whereas their secondborn, Stephen, is 26, from whom they are proud to have 4 grandchildren too.
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